1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a microchannel structure and its manufacturing method, a light source device and a projector.
2. Related Art
The microchannel structure is a structure including at least two fine flow paths having a width of a few micrometers to some hundreds of micrometers, and is used in various applications. For example, microchannel structure is used as a heat exchanging component having a high cooling performance when a cooling medium (fluid) is flowed through the fine flow paths, and is used as a transporting path for a small flow amount of fluid.
For example, in the case of a heat exchanger that is a structure including at least two flow paths having a width of a few millimeters to a few centimeters, such heat exchanger can be mass-produced at a low cost when the wavy plate member formed by press working is accommodated and disposed in an accommodation portion of the external peripheral wall member as shown in JP-UM-A-61-84389.
However, it is difficult to perform microfabrication by press working. Therefore, in the case of forming at least two flow paths having a width of a few micrometers to some hundreds of micrometers as described above, the flow paths are formed by silicon etching in general.
However, use of silicon to form flow paths is more unfavorable in comparison to the case where a metal such as copper is used to form flow paths from the standpoint of a heat conductive property. Therefore, it becomes difficult to use a microchannel structure as a heat exchanging component having a high cooling performance.
In contrast, in the case where a metal such as copper is used to form flow paths having a width of a few micrometers to some hundreds of micrometers, they can formed by a fabrication method such as a wire-electrical discharge-processing. However, it takes much time to form flow paths by the wire-electrical discharge-processing and as such, the wire-electrical discharge-processing is not suitable as a fabrication method for low-cost mass production of microchannel structures.